Lebedev, Nikolai (1897-1978)

_Influential film critic who helped found the film journals Proletkino and Kino, and edited the Cinema Gazette.
He was the driving force in the creation of ARK and its first
chairman. While rejecting “bourgeois art” (for instance, criticizing
Yakov Protozanov’s Aelita: Queen of Mars (1924) for
its lack of ideology), he also insisted that films should be
comprehensible to the masses and was therefore critical of radical avant-garde
experimentation, particularly that of Dziga Vertov. After ARK folded,
Lebedev made several documentaries, taught at the Russian State
University of Cinematography and elsewhere, and went on to write a
history of Soviet silent cinema in 1947.

LEF

LEF, from the Left Front of the Arts, was a avant-garde journal that began publication in 1923. Famous contributors included Brik, Eisenstein, Vertov, Schlofskj and Rodchenko. The journal frequently dealt with the relationship between “representation, meaning, and official history”, resulting in writings that heavily favoured the constructivist ethos. Their goal was to examine new modes of art and production, believing that a focus on “alternative cultural production could shift the expectations and understandings of the masses”. The publication later became New LEF until it ceased publication in 1929.

For More Info:Sorensen, Janet. ""Lef," Eisenstein, and the Politics of Form." Film Criticism 19 (1994): 55-74. Print.Or CLICK HERE

Lenin, V.I. (1970-1924)

_Born Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, Lenin was a fierce Russian Marxist
revolutionary, leader of the October Revolution and the founder of the
Communist party. Strongly influenced by Marx, his theories are credited
as exploring the practical use of Marxist analysis as seen through his
organization of several Liberation organizations prior to leading the
Bolsheviks. He is the author of the April Theses
(1917), which became the manifesto for the Bolshevik party. He became
head of the Soviet state from 1917-1924 and established the New Economic
Plan (NEP) in 1921. After suffering three strokes in two years, he died
in 1924. His body remains on display in Moscow’s Red Square and remains
a popular tourist attraction today.

For More Info: Lenin, Vladimir. Revolution at the Gates: a Selection of Writings from February to October 1917. London: Verso, 2002. Lenin, Vladimir. What is to be Done? Burning questions of our movement. New York: International, 1969. Zevin, V., and G. Golikov. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin: Life and Work. Moscow: Novosti Press, 1977.

__A.V. Lunacharskii (1875-1933)

__Ukrainian born journalist and intellectual who was active in Marxist
revolutionary groups from his teen years. He went into exile in 1909 and
spent the next years in émigré revolutionary circles, where his
activities included founding a school for Russian socialist workers at
Maxim Gorky’s villa in Capri. He returned to Russia after the February
Revolution in 1917 and joined the Bolsheviks. Following the October
Revolution, he was appointed Commissar of Enlightenment, making him
responsible for education and culture, which included the film
industry. As minister, he presided over the cinefication campaign and
the creation of ARK, ODSK, Goskino and Sovkino. During his years in
power, two of his plays were adapted for films and he co-wrote four
screenplays: the early agit films Overcrowding (1918, Alexander Panteleev) and Daredevil (1919, Mikhail Narokov and Nikandr Turkin), the blatantly commercial and extremely popular The Bear’s Wedding (1926, Konstantin Eggert and Vladimir Gardin) and the early socialist realist film Salamandra
(1928, Grigori Roshal). His control over the industry began to fade
with the rise of Stalin and he was not associated with the Cultural
Revolution. He lost his post in 1929 with the consolidation of Stalin’s
power and served abroad as an ambassador until dying in 1933.A.V. Lunacharskii page

Marxism

This is the political and economic philosophy developed by German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Marxist principles argue for a classless, socialist society where bourgeois oppression of the working class is destroyed. Marxism is a system of analysis that can pertain to many disciplines including academics, politics and gender studies. This analytical perspective is strongly tied to a critique of capitalism as a method of social change.

For More Info: Anderson, Kevin. “Lenin, Hegel and Western Marxism: From the 1920’s to 1953”. Studies in Soviet Thought, Vol 44.2 (Sept., 1992), pp. 79-129. Burns, Emile. An Introduction to Marxism. New York: International Publishers, 1966.

Menshevik

The Mensheviks (meaning "minority") were the smaller faction in the divide and eventual split in the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party between Mensheviks and Bolsheviks that arose from a disagreement between party leaders Lenin and Julius Martov. The Mensheviks believed in larger parties of activists, which was opposed to Lenin’s argument for a small party (or "vanguard") of professional revolutionaries. The Mensheviks opposed the October Revolution and lost much of their support following it.

For More Info: Galili y Garcia, Ziva. The Menshevik Leaders in the Russian Revolution. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1989. Schwarz, Solomon. The Russian Revolution of 1905; the workers’ movement and the formation of Bolshevism and Menshevism. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1967.

Meyerhold, Vsevelod (1874-1940)

An innovative avant-garde theater director whose ideas on staging plays as a “montage of attractions” and “biomechanical acting” were extremely influential in 1920s Soviet cinema, particularly on the work of his former pupil Sergei M. Eisenstein. Meyerhold made a handful of screen appearances and directed two pre-Revolution films, but otherwise worked exclusively in the theater, running his own company from 1922 until 1939. Shortly after his wife was murdered in their apartment in July of 1939, Meyerhold was arrested by the NKVD (State security). After being tortured, he confessed to being a spy for foreign countries and was executed in 1940. He was rehabilitated following the death of Stalin.Vsevelod Meyerhold siteIMDB page

Metric Montage

A type of montage, as proposed by Eisenstein, that consists of a juxtaposition between the lengths of shots. He likens metric montage to a measure of music, where the shots create a beat, and the psychological effect is produced by the alteration of the mathematically determined ratio of said beat. For example, a quick procession of images can create tension, or as Eisenstein explains, “tension is obtained by the effect of mechanical acceleration by shortening the pieces while preserving the original proportions of the formula” (Eisenstein 72). A great example is the lezginka dance from October, which features editing mimicking the rhythm of music. The effect can be complex, as in the films of Vertov where the metric beat can be difficult to ascertain, or simple as Pudovkin's Storm Over Asia, which has scenes of strict metric composition (Eisenstein 72).

For More Info:Eisenstein, Sergei. Film Form [and]the Film Sense; Two Complete and Unabridged Works. New York: Meridian Books, 1957. Print.

Mezhrabpom

Independent film studio financed by foreign capital (Mezhrabpom is an abbreviation for International Workers Aid) in 1921 under the New Economic Policy (NEP). In 1926, it acquired the pre-Revolutionary film studio Rus and was renamed Mezhrabpom-Rus. Its most prominent director was Yakov Protozanov, and it was considered the most commercially minded of the film studios, for which it received a great deal of abuse from leftist critics, who accused it of making apolitical “bourgeois” films for Western audiences. Although Vsevelod Pudovkin also made films for Mezhrabpom, it is perhaps characteristic of the studio that he was the most accessible of the avant-garde directors. The studio was also criticized for using “specialists,” those veterans of the pre-Revolutionary industry who had not emigrated or, like Protozanov, had returned from exile. The studio was nationalized in 1928 as the NEP was wound up and renamed Mezhrabpomfilm. It was further purged of bourgeois elements in 1930, but continued to produce films until 1937. Among the string of hits and otherwise important films produced by the studio were Aelita: Queen of Mars (1924, Yakov Protozanov), The Cigarette Girl of Mosselprom (1924, Yuri Zhelyabuzhsky), Chess Fever (1925, Vsevelod Pudovkin), The Case of the Three Million (1926, Yakov Protozanov), The Bear’s Wedding (1926, Konstantin Eggert and Vladimir Gardin), Mother(1926, Vsevelod Pudovkin), Miss Mend (1926, Boris Barnet), TheForty-First (1927, Yakov Protozanov), The Girl with the Hatbox (1927, Boris Barnet), AKiss from Mary Pickford (1927, Sergei Komarov), The End of St. Petersburg (1927, Vsevelod Pudovkin), Land in Captivity (1928, Fyodor Otsep), Storm Over Asia (1928, Vsevelod Pudovkin), Deserter (1933, Vsevelod Pudovkin) and Three Songs of Lenin(1934, Dziga Vertov).List of Mezhrabpom/Mezhrabpom-Rus productions, 1924-1928List of Mezhrabpomfilm productions, 1928-1937

Montage

_Montage, in its essence, pertains to the relationship between two images
or shots. By connecting or juxtaposing these images together, their two
singular meanings synthesize to create a new concept. As the formalist
belief dictated that “the essence of cinema is not to show reality, but
to create meaning through a new language” (Eagle 34); montage
represented the opportunity to develop a film language necessary to
transmit ideological ideas. It became an essential tool for Soviet
filmmakers, for, as Montagu remarked, montage enabled Soviet cinema's
need to “reflect the external world with more reality than [was] usually
attained by the Western cinema” (Leyda 176). Kuleshov, in his early
experiments, deemed montage the key to film art, arguing that “film art
begins from the moment when the director begins to come and join
together the various pieces of film. By joining them in various
combinations, in different orders, he obtains differing results” (Leyda
175)

The means in which this device was utilized however,
could differ drastically between directors. Eisenstein originated his
theory from his “Montage of Attractions”, emphasizing the “collision”
of images, where the impact of two distinct and conflicting ideas
juxtaposed together results in an explosion of concept. This differed,
for example, from the montage styles of Kuleshov and Pudovkin who,
favouring Hollywood film for its economical structures to induce
emotional response, utilized montage as a means of “linking” images
together to stress continuity between actions and reduce “spectator
disorientation” (Kepley 138). To Pudovkin , montage allowed for the
“precise organization in time and space of work in front of the camera”
(Pudovkin 14), facilitating the attention of the viewer, and achieving
the necessary exposition. Vertov, meanwhile, looking for a more accurate
depiction of life through film, eschewed the notion of benefiting the
narrative scenario through editing, and instead understood montage as
the “organization of the seen world” (Leyda 178). He saw montage as
“less a technique than the entire production process: choosing a
subject, shooting footage, and assembling the film.”; editing, for
audience impact, with “intervals”, differences based on the binary
opposition of shot content: “light and dark, slow and fast, etc”
(Thompson 140).

Montage of Attractions

Eisenstein's Montage of Attractions is his first theory of montage, originally published in 1923 as an article in LEF. Conceived initially as a theatrical method while working with the Proletkult theatre, it would serve as the basis for his early explorations of montage within the cinema. He describes his “attractions” as elements which produce an emotional response in the audience by means of a calculated shock that provides “the only opportunity of perceiving the ideological aspect of what is being shown” (Eisenstein 230). Based around the idea of a circus attraction, the goal was to present an event as dynamic as possible and “forceful in its attempt to attract the spectator's attention” (Aitkin 29). The difference however between a “stunt” and an “attraction” to Eisenstein, lay in the latter's ability to produce a lingering effect in the audience. The assemblage of these attractions, each producing a psychological influence, could coalesce into a “specific final thematic effect”, which would achieve resolution in the mind of the spectator (Aikin 30). While initially within the montage of attraction, emphasis was placed on the arbitrariness of images, with selection to be predicated on their ability to elicit a physical response, Eisenstein would further articulate the idea of ideological reception through attraction by means of juxtaposition as defined by intellectual montage.

For More Info:Aitken, Ian. European Film Theory and Cinema :A Critical Introduction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2001. Print. Eisenstein, Sergei. Film Form [and]the Film Sense; Two Complete and Unabridged Works. New York: Meridian Books, 1957. Print.

Mozhukin, Ivan (1889-1939).

Prominent film actor of the pre-Revolutionary era, appearing in a series of films between 1911 and 1917. Following the Revolution, he emigrated and became one of the most popular stars of the French silent cinema, and remained a busy character in the sound era until his death. He is probably most remembered for being the unwitting face of the “Kuleshov Effect,” when Lev Kuleshov reedited footage from one of his Tsarist-era films to illustrate his theories of montage.IMDB page